


Doors

by ledbythreads



Series: Heart in your hand [8]
Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1972, Angst, Canon Timeline, Complicated Relationships, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Jealousy, M/M, One Untrue Pairing, Pining, Smut, True Love, it aint easy, non monogamy is not a piece of cake, on tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: Even if this is what you both do - sometimes it still hurts.
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Series: Heart in your hand [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523687
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Only Robert knocks like that. So what? Jimmy rolls over against Pamela but she’s flat out. Deep asleep. He feels Robert like a hook in his back. He hasn’t seen him alone for days. 

Pamela’s eyes still go wide when Jimmy is talking and he needs that. Robert has too much to say. Who can blame Jimmy for wanting some things easy? They don’t bring their wives on tour, so. He never promised Robert a rose garden, did he? He’s promised one to Pamela a dozen times and she still believes him. Still believes she will wake up at Pangbourne and see peacocks out of the window. It’s charming. Even Robert can’t go there. Not now. But Robert knows. Knows everything.

He hasn’t heard his footsteps leaving. Robert is never one to tiptoe. If he left he’d want Jimmy to know all about it. He doesn’t knock again but Jimmy can hear the echo on repeat.

Jimmy slithers out of the bed and pulls Pamela’s silk shawl round his hips. A few candles are still guttering. He’s spent several pleasant hours between Pamela’s thighs making her gasp and flutter. Until she was exhausted and he’d begun to feel put back together. It could be getting light. It could be three am. When he needs to be awake someone tells him. They bring him tea he doesn’t drink and a neatly ironed copy of the Times he doesn’t read. Robert doesn’t bring him anything. He’s been looking at him with what seems like amusement, but Jimmy knows is a soft reproach. Like he wants Jimmy to be one of his farm dogs, and wants Jimmy to come by without a leash. 

For a moment Jimmy waits with his hand on the door, like his hand is on Robert’s chest. He opens the door. 

Robert steps over the threshold and his hands are on him. Jimmy feels like barley under the scythe. Robert’s pulling off the shawl before Jimmy can think to stop him. He’s walking Jimmy back with a knee between his thighs and his tongue in Jimmy’s mouth. His hands always feel so big whenever Jimmy has had women touching him. Robert can almost encircle Jimmy’s tiny waist. Nothing but this matters. Skin on skin and this need. Robert’s need ignites his own. Naked and raw and no lies possible between them. The only way to stop this is not to start. They are nearly on the bed before Robert freezes. Before he drops Jimmy like hot coal and stumbles backwards. Not in shock. In resignation.

Jimmy feels like his heart is still in Robert’s hands and he has no right to ask for it back. 

Robert turns to leave. Jimmy catches his hand. His fingertips. 

The shawl is on the floor between them and Jimmy is naked in so many ways. He can hear Pamela breathing. Steady. The thick dream sleep of someone who can make themselves happy. It’s enviable. The last candle stutters out and they are in darkness. Robert. So still. Then he’s pushing Jimmy back onto the bed. Shoving him. Jimmy grabs his wrist and Robert peels back his fingers. He’s angry. Is he angry? He’s got every right he’s got no right he’s going to fuck everything up he’s here. He’s here. He’s. 

He’s pressing Jimmy back. He’s up on the bed over him. Inches away from. His breath. His weight crushing. Hard hands. Holding Jimmy in place. In his place. Not so easy now. Hot mouth on his throat. Jimmy arching against him while. Hand between his legs. Cupping Jimmy’s balls like eggs he might crack together so the yolk runs down his thighs. Silent. Darkness making every point of contact vivid. The smell of him. Hotel soap. Gin on his breath. Jimmy reaches out to hold him and Robert pushes his hands away. Carefully pushes his hands away where no harm can come to them, but no such reverence for Jimmy’s soft, useless, aching body.

Hand across his mouth that he does not need to stay quiet, but he feels like he deserves. Robert bites into his chest and he’s grateful. Wet tongue dragging over teethmarks. Nail tracks down his belly where they will be seen. Jimmy’s legs fall apart for him, but Robert shoves them closed. Hard knees at either side digging in. Pamela stirs but. Only inches away. Robert must taste her. Oh god. Oh fuck. Robert’s hair on his belly. Crawling down to. Suck it. Baby. Nobody does. Oh my god. His beautiful mouth. Holding Jimmy’s wrists beside his hips. Only his mouth. Deep and slow and vicious. A mouth is a mouth is a mouth unless. Unless it is Robert.

If he tries to move Robert stops. He must want to be the only one making this happen. This obscene miracle. This loving possession. His tongue like memory itself. To call it giving head is a lie. This is taking. Taking over. Taking stock. Taking tribute. Taking Jimmy places only they share. Taking him to pieces. As Jimmy gets there, Robert pulls away. Makes Jimmy come over his own belly. Salt cum smarting in the scratches. 

Then he’s sitting on the end of the bed. A darker shadow in the darkness. Jimmy can feel the bed shaking. Robert is weeping. When he leaves, Jimmy lies like a string about to snap. When he can’t bear it another second. For the first time. He goes after him. 


	2. Pool

G calls Jimmy over, tipping a couple of girls off his lap and patting the space beside him on the hideous sofa. Jimmy resents living in a hotel. The way that even if they take the whole floor the communal spaces cannot be disguised as essentially still corridors. That his comings and goings involve a parade of sorts. That he and Robert are subsisting in their workplace. Their emotions stuffed into suitcases.

“Are you going to kiss and make up?”  
“Is that a professional enquiry, Peter, or shall we have a drink?”  
“Well you look like you need one.”  
“How can it matter what I look like at this hour?”  
“Looks matter at every hour. Both of you.”

“So he’s ... not?”  
“To be expected between them I sez. Fighting over a lady.”

“Where is he?... Is he?”  
“I sent Richard”  
“Hardly diplomatic”  
“He’s a good dog. And he won’t be stupid if Percy kicks him”  
“Robert’s not. He doesn’t”  
“You sure? Miss P give you trouble you need to wear a scarf for? ... He’s grown now Jim. Him and Bonz have moments.”  
“He and I. It’s entirely different, you know him Peter. I... well he wouldn’t if I asked him. Doesn’t”  
“I could fetch somebody for you. For that. Take the edge off. You asking for trouble, Pagey? You bored?”

“No.”

Jimmy slams shut like a ledger.

“Jim”  
“This conversation is rather outside even your remit, wouldn’t you say?”  
“Who the fuck else are you gonna talk to?”  
“I think that’s the end of it. Don’t you?”

“He’s on the roof.”  
“I’m not ungrateful, Peter.”  
“I know. Go if you’re going.”

\---

Jimmy takes the lift. The elevator. He does not feel elevated. He feels exposed. Shame. He feels shame about how profoundly he loves Robert. How inescapably. How Robert is his apple in the garden, and now he feels like a sinner. Forgive me for I have trespassed against thee. Lead me into temptation. You are my power and my glory. Forever. Forever?  
Lord of light. My star.

The last floor is reached by stairs. Richard is waiting at the top. Loitering like a spiv in an air-raid. Silk stockings in the lining of his coat and black market sugar in his pockets.

No time for candy today. Jimmy wants to avoid him, but if he and Robert are to have the illusion of being alone then Richard must guard them. Is this how Orpheus felt? Bored to tears by Cerberus.

“Good morning.”  
“I fear not.”

Richard never knows quite how to take Jimmy. Like he’s never quite in on a very subtle joke.

“I cleared everyone off. I said what’s the point if you can’t have some perks, eh?”  
“Well I’d certainly be much obliged if you could see that continues.”

Jimmy doesn’t like to smoke in front of all and sundry. He would like a cigarette now though, but is fastidious about asking. He’ll wait. He remains silent knowing it makes Richard uncomfortable.

“Right then. I will leave you two to, well, whatever you and him...”

More waiting. Off you pop Richard.

“So. I’ll be. Shout if you need me.”

Finally.

\---

Robert is swimming laps. Hair dark. Naked.Well he wouldn’t have thought to bring up his speedo now, would he. Not the state he was in. Jimmy’s all buttoned back up. This pursuit is new enough. No need to run round disheveled. His days of being served up to groupies in nothing but whipped cream have long gone. Things are out of control enough as it is. Maybe he should have kept the beard. Robert’s fingers on his jaw the day he shaved it off. _Pretty baby_ , his eyes said. Surprised him taking snapshots. That night Jimmy with his super eight. Asked Robert to film him as he. When he got the film back he knew. Saw himself as. As Robert does.

Is Robert being petulant or has he really not noticed Jimmy is here. His tshirt and jeans are draped on the end of a lounger. The sky too orange with dawn for stars, Jimmy still feels them pressing down. He picks up Robert’s shirt like it is a little boy’s pajama. Jimmy presses it to his face and smells his own sweat on it. He’s in deep.

Jimmy sits at the side of the pool. He takes off his shoes and dangles his feet in. Trousers still on. Flares flapping in the slight wavelets like a nondescript mermaid. Jimmy takes his gold lighter out of his pocket, runs his thumb over the inscription. Puts it in one of his shoes. Slides himself into the water.

He still can’t swim. As the water goes over his head Jimmy sees shimmering from the underwater spotlights and then he’s too terrified to see anything much at all.

For the first few moments as Robert holds him, Jimmy imagines sinking together to the bottom like in the Water Babies. Robert will turn his dirty skin inside out leaving just a little frill at his neck. Jimmy will do as he will be done by. He will be clean again. Maybe he thought love will let him breathe under water. It feels like drowning in any case.

He’s fighting. Pushpulling. Feet scrabbling on nothingness. Depths.  
Wrapping himself to Robert like kelp. Wrackweed. Limpet.  
Down. Both of them. This was very fucking stupid from the start.

_Touch me._

_Where?_

Wanting air like he wants. Feet touch bottom. Panic. Arms over his arms. Holding his wrists by his hips.  
His kiss.  
It stills him.  
Dragging him back up now. Hauled onto. Sticky chlorine coughing. Half out and held there. The edge of the pool digging into his stomach. A bruised line.

“Pagey. Put your feet down.”

He feels so stupid. Robert’s hand at the small of his back.  
 _Pagey._  
His first name. Before any of this.

The water is only up to his armpits. He turns to him. Into his arms.

“Robert, I...”  
“Don’t talk. Just. Not now.”

Robert is stripping Jimmy’s shirt off. Chest to chest. A little heat. His eyes unreachable.

“You’re soaked.” Robert kisses the words softly into Jimmy’s hair.

In the rain at Bron-yr-Aur. Jimmy had held him safe that time. The first time when it was too much for him.  
They don’t say I love you.  
Why is this happening? He doesn’t love Pamela. Not even close.

“I don’t love her.”

He says it around their kiss. He says the same to Pamela but this time he isn’t lying.

“Then why do you leave me?”

Jimmy is shivering in the water now but his hands are sliding down Robert’s belly. Jimmy wants to find him hard but he isn’t. He isn’t.

He can’t say _because I love you too much_. He can’t say anything real.

“Let’s go to the ocean. Richard can drive us.”

Jimmy starts to climb out of the pool. He’s falling backwards. Shocked when he realizes Robert has pulled him back in. An arm hooked round his waist.

“No. Look.”

Robert holds him close. Pressed to Jimmy’s back. The sun is just cutting over the edges of the buildings. Cracking the skyline open. Making the surface of the pool flat and mirrored.

“Jimmy it has to be right... here, eh? Us. Right in the middle of everything. Same sun.”  
“I’m cold.”  
“You can be.”  
“Look what we make, baby. Look what we do. It’s because of us. Of how I feel.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Whatever for?”  
“Somebody should just say it sometimes. It’s not going to be you.”

Robert swims away. Pulls himself up on his arms and up onto the side. Like an otter. A gay pornstar otter. Golden and gleaming. Jimmy shuffles into the shallows and ascends the metal ladder cautiously. His pants stuck to him like second skin. Like Robert when he’s been shrinking new denim by lounging in the bath.

“Take em off. You’ve got knickers on.”  
“You’re very bright all of a sudden.”  
“New day.”  
‘Is that all it takes?”

“You came. Came to take me away from it all. Thats all I ask, really.”

**Author's Note:**

> Miss Pamela is based on Pamela Des Barres. I mean she is asleep this whole ficlet so I cannot say she is quite RPF. The comment about being taken to Pangbourne and waking up to see the peacocks is from De Barres herself in her 2018 interview with the Big Issue magazine called 'MeToo was different in Music'. The thing that made me use that quote is that I'm not sure there even *were* any peacocks there. It on the river after all. Oh Jimmy.  
> Also, the schedule of the 1972 US tour! punishing or what? They are getting a bit frayed. But the music. I mean the music. How The West Was Won era. Ok let me not make notes longer than the fic.
> 
> Thank you, as always, Fishie - for your care for my bwains


End file.
